His One and Only China Girl
by VerelLupin
Summary: She was his China Girl. He just didn't know it and he never would because if he did, he'd be the one who would shatter into a million pieces.


**I got sucked into another fandom. Darn you plot bunnies, darn you!**

**I'm in the minority if at all, I have not seen fics for them yet so I'm starting the ball going. I personally thought they had more chemistry but I'm strange like that.**

** I will be doing another longer one that includes a grown up wheelchair girl. (I don't think she has a name) **

**There's a youtube video that's tied to this story. It's in my profile.**

**Enjoy...**

* * *

Sometimes she really wished she could hate him. She knew she shouldn't wish for such a thing and knew that there was no real reason to be angry with him. Its not like he knew how it hurt that he cared for her and showed it by giving her pet names.

She knew that they were all sincere endearments from a man that used to hand them out often. He'd changed his ways once he saw what his careless words of love had done to Theodora and ever since he'd sworn off of those types of words. Not even Glinda got so much as a sweetheart.

But she did. He called her his doll. His porcelain darling and the one that broke her a little more every day, _'His China Girl.'_

'How's my China Girl, today?" He asked picking her up and carrying her with him to his new study before she could even run out of his reach.

"I'm fine, Oz but you don't have to carry me. I can walk." She said clinging to his waistcoat.

"I know but I like carrying you and once you grow up, I won't be able to."

"I am grown up." She protested yanking none too gently on his hair to get a better grip on his shoulder.

"Easy on the hair," he said pulling her little hand from it and kissing it lovingly. "I forget how big you are, soon I'll have to keep the boys away."

He winked at her and she wanted to both smack the smirk off his face and kiss him until he acknowledged that she was a grown woman.

"Oscar, you won't send me away will you?"

He set her on the floor until he sat down then picked her back up to deposit her on his lap. "Do you want me to send you away?"

"No but there are no more China villages here. I'd have to travel to the Emerald City if I wanted to get married or find any of those boys you're so concerned about."

"Hey, don't worry. Nobody will make you do anything unless you want to. You have my word." He said and playfully kissed the top of her head. "They'll be plenty of time for that when you get older."

She squirmed away from him and climbed onto the desk so she was sitting facing him. "I need…"

"What is it?" he asked quietly. She shook her head and stared at her delicate hands, hating them for their size and frailty, hating them because they looked nothing like his and there was nothing she could do about it. "What's bugging my little doll?"

"Stop it!" she yelled and used both of her hands to shove away the hand cupping her face. "Just stop it, I can't take it anymore. I just can't," she said burying her noisy tears in her hands.

She heard him abruptly scrape his chair back and walk to the window. She peaked between her fingers and saw how he had turned his back on her, he'd never done that before and she had made him angry enough to do so many times in the past.

She saw the tension settle on his normally relaxed frame, tension that she hadn't seen in over ten years, and she left her spot to stand as close to the edge of the desk as she could without falling. "Oscar?"

"I don't know what to say." He said it softly but she could hear the agony in his voice and for that second in time she detested him for it. Detested how his despair was breaking down her resistance and how his effortless charm made her love him more than ever before.

Loved him so much that she was willing to pretend for his sake. Willing to accept the simple fact that just calling her his, when she could never be, was enough to keep her by his side for a while longer.

"I'm sorry. It's not your fault."

He gave a hard laugh that held no humor, "it's not?"

"No. I'm just being sensitive today. It's been fifteen years since you rescued me and you just reminded me so much of my papa…I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"Is that today? I didn't realize." He left the window and swept her into his arms. "I'm so sorry."

She cried into his shoulder and he held her tight and she swore to herself that she would never tell him why she was crying until the day she left him for good. "Thank you."

"For what?" he asked setting her back on his desk and wiping her tears with his handkerchief.

"For letting me be your China Girl." She said and stood on her tippy toes to place a chaste kiss on his mouth. "I don't ever want to be anybody else's."

"You'll always be mine, until the day I die." He said smiling that devastating crooked grin she adored and she felt another bit of her die inside.

"You'll always be my Oscar?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

"I love you." She said and this time when she jumped into his arms she held on a little longer.

"I love you too, my China Girl."

He put her down and they continued their day same as before, him drawing up elaborate plans to keep the pretense of his magic up and she offering suggestions while not admiring his face. At some point the conversation was forgotten and she drifted off to sleep in his warm embrace like she always did and he tucked her in with all the tenderness he reserved for her.

Alone in her room, she contemplated. It had been many years since he met her back in her destroyed home and many more since she'd been any kind of girl, china or otherwise but he didn't see it and he probably never would and it was time she let it go.

All he saw was her size and that he could still scoop her up into his arms no matter how she persisted. He still tucked her in despite her protests and he still placed sweet kisses on her forehead and wished her goodnight not realizing that the feel of his lips on her cool skin would torment her throughout the night.

She tried to talk to him and though he always had time to hear her, Oscar never actually listened.

So she settled for slowly turning that love from sadness to acceptance. She never could quite get to anger and she wasn't sure what kept her from reaching the forbidden emotion. It could have been that she wasn't ready to leave that place in his heart.

Or maybe it was that didn't want to give up the precious hours she spent sitting on his desk as he tinkered on something or other. Didn't dare interrupt the bed times stories that she was too old for but that kept him at her bedside for those moments when he really let himself be Oscar the human and not the Great and powerful Oz.

Deep down she knew if she ever really told him how she felt that he would break as easily as her, today had proven it. And she couldn't bear to see those sparkling brown eyes lose their light and take responsibility for her feelings as he'd done for the now Wicked Witch.

She loved him too much to let him get lost within himself as he'd done the first few months after Evanora and Theodora left, so he became another wish that would never be fulfilled or voiced.

Oz the great and powerful was as delicate and precious to her as she was to him. She was his china girl and he was her porcelain boy and she would never let him shatter even if it broke her piece by piece.


End file.
